Mrs. Little has rewarded Dr. Amboyne’s patience and constancy.  They have no children of their own, so they claim all the young Littles and Rabys, present and to come; and the doctor has bound both the young women by a solemn vow to teach them, at an early age, the art of putting themselves into his place, her place, their place.  He has convinced these young mothers that the “great transmigratory art,” although it comes of itself only to a few superior minds, can be taught to vast numbers; and he declares that, were it to be taught as generally as reading and writing, that teaching alone would quadruple the intelligence of mankind, and go far to double its virtue.

But time flies, and space contracts:  the words and the deeds of Amboyne, are they not written in the Amboyniana?

One foggy night, the house of a non-Union fender-grinder was blown up with gunpowder, and not the workman only—­the mildest and most inoffensive man I ever talked with—­but certain harmless women and innocent children, who had done nothing to offend the Union, were all but destroyed.  The same barbarous act had been committed more than once before, and with more bloody results, but had led to no large consequences—­carebat quai vate sacro; but this time there happened to be a vates in the place, to wit, an honest, intrepid journalist, with a mind in advance of his age.  He came, he looked, he spoke to the poor shaken creatures—­one of them shaken for life, and doomed now to start from sleep at every little sound till she sleeps forever—­and the blood in his heart boiled.  The felony was publicly reprobated, and with horror, by the Union, which had, nevertheless, hired the assassins; but this well-worn lie did not impose on the vates, or chronicler ahead of his time.  He went round to all the manufacturers, and asked them to speak out.  They durst not, for their lives; but closed all doors, and then, with bated breath, and all the mien of slaves well trodden down, hinted where information might be had.  Thereupon the vates aforesaid—­Holdfast yclept—­went from scent to scent, till he dropped on a discontented grinder, with fish-like eyes, who had been in “many a night job.”  This man agreed to split, on two conditions; he was to receive a sum of money, and to be sent into another hemisphere, since his life would not be worth a straw, if he told the truth about the Trades in this one.  His terms were accepted, and then he made some tremendous revelations and, with these in his possession, Holdfast wrote leader upon leader, to prove that the Unions must have been guilty of every Trade outrage that had taken place for years in the district; but adroitly concealing that he had positive information.

Grotait replied incautiously, and got worsted before the public.  The ablest men, if not writers, are unwise to fence writers.

Holdfast received phonetic letters threatening his life:  he acknowledged them in his journal and invited the writers to call.